Bombshell JFK E book Unearths ‘Wild’ Romance with Flight Attendant Joan Lundberg — Collectively with Her Pregnancy and What Jackie Knew (Irregular)

NEED TO KNOW

• A bombshell original e book, JFK: Public, Personal, Secret by J. Randy Taraborrelli, comes out July 15 and PEOPLE has an strange first excerpt

• It presentations that JFK had an affair with a flight attendant named Joan Lundberg, ensuing in her pregnancy

• Below, learn what came about — and how Jackie reacted to her husband’s affairs

Joan Lundberg used to be “one in every of a form,” says her son Zachary Hitchcock. “She used to be unconventional and honest — a voluptuous beauty with a colossal smile.”

In step with a bombshell original biography, JFK: Public, Personal, Secret by J. Randy Taraborrelli, the younger flight attendant met JFK in 1956 when he used to be a senator from Massachusetts — and married. It’s a piece-identified chapter within the lifestyles of the thirty fifth president and will bear remained that come were it no longer for Lundberg’s family, who shared her unpublished memoir and deepest diaries with Taraborrelli.

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The author tells her legend in detail for the first time in his original e book, a discover-up to his 2023 biography, Jackie: Public, Personal Secret. Says Taraborrelli, “With this e book, I wanted no longer to protect JFK nonetheless I wanted to demonstrate him.”

“Joan used to be a colossal revelation for me,” the author adds. “She acted as his therapist in many programs. Because she used to be open air of his Washington circle, he opened up to her — and began to reckon alongside with his flaws.” By weaving Lundberg’s legend and portions of her manuscript into his original e book, he says, “You’re left with a portrait of a in actuality attention-grabbing woman.”

Be taught extra under, in an excerpt from JFK: Public, Personal, Secret shared exclusively with PEOPLE.

On August 19, 1956, the senator from Massachusetts met Joan Lundberg, 23, standing in entrance of the jukebox at The Sip and Surf, a dive bar in Santa Monica, Calif. “What are you gonna play?” he asked her. “I was pondering Elvis Presley, nonetheless what would you like to hear?” she asked. He acknowledged he wished to hear one thing “so I will be aware of you.” Corny, nonetheless no longer low.

Joan, a single mom of two, used to be then dwelling with a man named Norm Bishop and working as a flight attendant for Frontier Airways (and as a cocktail waitress on the side).

When Jack asked where she lived, she instructed him it used to be in a “trailer court docket nearby,” no longer hesitating. “What the hell’s a trailer court docket?” he asked. She laughed and answered, “You don’t desire to know.”

After about quarter-hour Jack, then 39, acknowledged goodbye and returned to his guests.

Half of an hour later, bar proprietor Pat Dorian called her to the cell phone. She picked it up. “How ah ya?” came wait on the affirm with its colossal Bostonian accent. It used to be Jack. He used to be leaving town the next day to come to come for Italy nonetheless would return in two weeks.

On Aug. 24 Jack realized Jackie, then 27, had given start to their stillborn daughter Arabella. Four days later he returned to Hammersmith Farm, her family’s property in Newport, R.I., where she used to be recovering — and bored to death.

She’d persistently felt one thing used to be missing in his nature, and now she knew what it used to be: empathy. When Jackie wept at the breakfast desk and acknowledged, “How might maybe well I were so boring?” her mom, Janet, reached out and took her hand. “You’re no longer boring,” she instructed her. “You neutral appropriate put your have faith within the unfriendly person.”

In early September, Jack returned to L.A. and invited Joan to a feast at the home of his sister Pat and her husband, actor Peter Lawford.

Joan later remembered feeling anxious and out of her ingredient, though she absolutely looked classy in an outfit from Jax in Beverly Hills, a boutique preferred by Marilyn Monroe. She would later write: “He lit up the room. Other folks came to switch to neutral appropriate to be come him, his vitality magnetic. I belief, smartly indubitably, that’s the flesh presser in him. Nonetheless I soon realized that, no, that’s neutral appropriate who he is.”

At about nighttime time, Jack drove Joan up Pacific Waft Dual carriageway to a nondescript 1930s motor court docket called the Sunset Motel. They checked in as “Mr. and Mrs. Robert Thompson.” The intercourse that night time used to be “wild,” claimed Joan. The next morning over breakfast, he unburdened himself. His fears, his insecurities. It used to be as if she used to be so removed from his circle, he might maybe well fragment the relaxation. In step with what Joan later recalled, Jack admitted that he and Jackie were the fabricated from “an organized marriage” and, as such marriages poke, he acknowledged it used to be “colorful. No longer colossal, nonetheless okay.”

Jack acknowledged his family had grew to change into against him for no longer being there for Jackie after Arabella’s stillbirth.

He admitted that “We Kennedys aren’t the appropriate at expressing emotion.” Joan instructed him, “I’ll wager that’s the colossal excuse of your lifestyles.” Joan asked him if he’d grown to esteem his wife. He hesitated. “I don’t know that I in actual fact just like the relaxation,” used to be his solution. That might maybe well’t be neutral, she acknowledged. After a 2nd, he added, “I in actual fact like politics. I don’t know how to esteem the relaxation.”

Jack Kennedy had no sooner walked into the lobby of Hammersmith Farm upon his return to Newport when Jackie hit him with a request: “Who’s Trailer Park Joan?” As he peaceable his thoughts, she clarified issues: “The divorcée! Your sister instructed me all about her!” He defined that Joan used to be any individual he’d met in Los Angeles. Joan is imprecise in her unpublished memoir about how a lot Jack instructed Jackie, most attention-grabbing that he instructed her colorful a lot all the pieces.

Within weeks his father, Joe Kennedy, received a call from a high New York attorney who’d been retained to signify Jackie in a divorce. Joe met Jackie for lunch in New York to be in contact about it.

Joe instructed Jackie that if she agreed to remain within the marriage he might maybe well give her the freedom to develop whatever she loved. He would supply her $100,000 upon the start of her and Jack’s first child.

Jackie popular the supply nonetheless had to search out a come to manage alongside with her husband’s infidelity.

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Decades later, Jackie instructed architect John Carl Warnecke, “He didn’t bear to misinform me about this Joan woman. I was already lying to myself.” Warnecke recalled, “She instructed me issues changed for her when Jack grew to change into eager with Joan nonetheless that it wasn’t a field she wished to bag into. It used to be very painful, that a lot I knew.”

By 1957 JFK used to be being talked about as a presidential contender. In deepest he persisted his affair with Joan, flying her to meet him on various airlines and holding her bills.

“She instructed me, ‘I by no come anxiousness about danger when I’m with Jack because of the I poke for his sister, Pat, always,’ ” acknowledged Joan’s sister, Linda Lydon. Joan later recalled that she and Jack received alongside smartly, “excluding usual enthusiasts’ tiffs between two excessive-enthralling of us.” They recurrently talked about his political profession, with him commencing sentences with, “When I’m president . . .”

One night time in May possibly presumably well well moreover (1957) Jack and Joan were sharing a cigarette in mattress when he without warning asked her, “Direct me the fact, Joan. Elevate out you imagine Jackie is screwing other guys?” He defined that Jackie used to be “so colossal,” he couldn’t imagine her no longer having one more person in her lifestyles. First and critical put of the one year, he acknowledged, they’d started having intercourse every infrequently, nonetheless “there’s too a lot left unspoken between us.” Only within the near past after having intercourse, she’d asked him, “What you develop with me in mattress, is that what she likes?” obviously which come Joan. He might maybe well see the “hurt in her eyes,” he acknowledged, “and it killed me.”

After Jackie gave start to Caroline on Nov. 27, Joan noticed a change.

She later wrote: “I feel I was now an excellent deal in esteem, and I was so angry at myself because of the I knew better. I knew better!” While Jack and Joan would but again fragment their mattress in Minneapolis on April 25 and 26, 1958, issues were undoubtedly various.

On June 25, according to her calendar, Joan called Jack.

She used to be pregnant.

Joan would recall that her info relating to the baby used to be “like a knife to Jack’s heart.” While it used to be a shock, Joan wrote that they shouldn’t were so greatly surprised: “I didn’t like wearing a diaphragm, and Jack wouldn’t wear a rubber,” she wrote. Jack couldn’t abet nonetheless surprise if Joan had purposely planned the pregnancy on condition that she’d considered his devotion to Jackie after Caroline’s start. He moreover wondered if he used to be in actuality the daddy, and Joan assured him he used to be. When he asked her how she felt relating to the pregnancy, she acknowledged she beloved the 2 kids she used to be raising on her dangle and knew she’d moreover esteem any child she and Jack introduced into the field. He didn’t know how to acknowledge.

“I affect no longer bear any phrases,” he acknowledged.

“Safe some,” she instructed him.

He took both her palms in his dangle. “I’m so very sorry, Joan,” he instructed her. “I am, too,” she acknowledged.

Later that summer they had a disturbing cell phone call.

Sounding edgy and never like himself, he instructed her he’d determined she couldn’t bear the baby. Joan tried to argue, nonetheless she didn’t know how. Jack acknowledged that he’d mail her $400.

He instructed her, “You’ll know what to develop, Joan. Please,” he acknowledged, his tone desperate. “Being a flesh presser is who I am,” he instructed her. “Politics is all I do know. When you happen to take that away . . .” His affirm trailed off. Sooner than she might maybe well acknowledge, he disconnected the street.

A week later she received an envelope with out a return address. It used to be empty. She instructed him the money had been stolen.

He grew to change into positively unhinged. Joan later wrote: “My God! You had by no come heard anybody use expletives loads for your complete history of Washington.” Jack used to be very definite; he didn’t desire Joan to bear the baby. He wired extra money that very same day, and she took care of issues a day after that. She used to be offended and dissatisfied, nonetheless moreover life like.

“From what she later instructed me, Mother realized the birthday celebration used to be over,” acknowledged Zachary Hitchcock in 2024. “She couldn’t be on the sidelines. The presidency, Jackie, the abortion, there used to be no come mom will be marginalized in that come. She had come too a lot pride.”

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It ended no longer in person nonetheless on the cell phone. When Jack called Joan to test on her, she instructed him, “I’m going to desire to place some distance between us.” He understood. “I owe you loads,” he instructed her. “One thing I desire to train to you, Kennedy,” she instructed him. “You esteem Caroline, and I do know that, nonetheless I’m any individual’s daughter, too. Be aware that the subsequent time you treat a lady the come you’ve treated me.”

On Nov. 8, 1960, he grew to change into the thirty fifth president. His relationship with Joan by no come came to light. Nonetheless Jackie did install a gaze, a lady she instructed for a job within the verbalize of job of JFK’s deepest secretary Evelyn Lincoln, to support her posted of suspicious calls.

From all accessible proof, Jackie by no come realized relating to the abortion, both. Decades later, she instructed a family member, “I was doing my most attention-grabbing with the cards I’d been dealt. I beloved Jack. I do know he beloved me. I had to ignore the comfort of it. My marriage used to be like a deep dusky gap and I knew if I looked down, I’d drop in.”

Kennedy had a telling conversation alongside with his friend Florida senator George Smathers in early 1962. “Elevate out you anxiousness Jackie will discover relating to the change females?” George asked. Jack grew to change into straight away frustrated. “There are no other females. I’ve by no come instructed any other woman I in actual fact like her. There is most attention-grabbing Jackie. Besides,” he acknowledged, “we might maybe well all be blown up in an atomic wrestle the next day to come to come. That’s what worries me. No longer this bullshit.”

After their son Patrick died on Aug. 9, 1963, two days after being born upfront, Jackie determined to hurry alongside with her husband to Dallas that November.

About a months earlier, at the birthday celebration of their tenth marriage ceremony anniversary, Jackie and Jack gave one one more gifts. She presented him with a original St. Christopher’s medal because of the he’d placed his dangle in Patrick’s coffin. In turn, he gave her a gold-and-emerald ring, which represented the scuffling with spirit of the Irish he’d considered in their son’s fight for survival. He slipped it onto Jackie’s finger next to her marriage ceremony band and asked her to marry him. There’d by no come been a trusty proposal, excluding about a phrases in an airport when she returned from her day scramble to England in 1953. Jack used to be a special man.

They planned a deepest ceremony to renew their vows for September 1964 at Hammersmith,
marking their 11th marriage ceremony anniversary. Jackie planned to wear a faded blue or yellow costume.
Nonetheless it by no come came to poke.

Joan (who had married Freemont Hitchcock in 1963) used to be devastated by the assassination. She wrote: When the fact struck home, I closed my mattress room curtains and shades, and I cried, screamed, and cursed alone for hours.

Excerpted from JFK: Public, Personal, Secret, copyright © 2025 by J. Randy Taraborrelli, with permission from St. Martin’s Press.

JFK: Public, Personal, Secret comes out July 15 and is accessible now for preorder, wherever books are sold.

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